In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley, along the trails left by the ancient Martians, to find the Temple of the Sun. It was buried, like so much else on Mars, in red sands over the course of millennia, but that meant nothing when you had a native to escort you to their ancestral home.
"So, how can we breathe here?" Pete asked the small, silver creature before him.
It sat in the biplane, strapped in, looking ridiculously small in the pilot's seat. "Air bubble," it replied, fiddling with the dials.
Pete had never flown in a biplane before. "But how come we came this way? I mean, don't you have a saucer or something?" Pete asked.
"Well, I thought you might be more comfortable in something from your own planet." Pete had the feeling the creature would have grinned, but it lacked a mouth. "Besides, it's from your time; isn't it?"
"What do you mean? You travel through time too!" Pete's head was beginning to hurt from the telepathy. The creature really needed a mouth.
They soared over red sands.
Author Catherine Russell shares her life with her high school sweetheart, their son, and two ferocious puppies in the Wilds of Ohio while writing short stories, editing her novel, and learning more about the craft every day. Her work has been published in Flash Me magazine, Metro Fiction, Beyond Centauri, and the ‘Best of Friday Flash – Volume One‘ and the ‘Best of Friday Flash – Volume Two‘ anthologies.